The brother who slanders

There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the One who is able to save and to destroy [the one God who has the absolute power of life and death]; but who are you to [hypocritically or self-righteously] pass judgment on your neighbor?

Brothers, do not slander one another. Anyone who speaks against his brother or judges him speaks against the law and judges it. And if you judge the law, you are not a practitioner of the law, but a judge of it. There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the One who is able to save and destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbor?

Do not complain about one another, brothers, so that you will not be judged. Look, the Judge is standing at the door!
Why, then, do you judge your brother? Or why do you belittle your brother? For we will all stand before God’s judgment seat. It is written:
“As surely as I live,
says the Lord,
every knee will bow before Me;
every tongue will confess to God.”

So then, each of us will give an account of himself to God.

But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire.
“Do not judge and criticize and condemn [others unfairly with an attitude of self-righteous superiority as though assuming the office of a judge], so that you will not be judged [unfairly].

A Warning against Favoritism
My brothers, as you hold out your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ, do not show favoritism.
Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in shabby clothes also comes in. If you lavish attention on the man in fine clothes and say, “Here is a seat of honor,” but say to the poor man, “You must stand” or “Sit at my feet,” have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?

Listen, my beloved brothers: Has not God chosen the poor of this world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom He promised those who love Him? But you have dishonored the poor. Is it not the rich who oppress you and drag you into court? Are they not the ones who blaspheme the noble name by which you have been called?

If you really fulfill the royal law stated in Scripture, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing well. But if you show favoritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors.

2 Corinthians 6:2

Every man’s way is right in his own eyes, But the LORD weighs and examines the hearts [of people and their motives]. Proverbs 21:2
He will use every kind of evil deception to fool those on their way to destruction, because they refuse to love and accept the truth that would save them. 2 Thessalonians 2:10

They are headed for destruction. Their god is their appetite, they brag about shameful things, and they think only about this life here on earth.
whose fate is destruction, whose god is their belly [their worldly appetite, their sensuality, their vanity], and whose glory is in their shame—who focus their mind on earthly and temporal things.
They are going to end up in hell, because their god is their bodily desires. They are proud of what they should be ashamed of, and they think only of things that belong to this world.
Philippians 3:19

The gate to destruction is wide, and the road that leads there is easy to follow. A lot of people go through that gate.
the gate to hell is wide and the road that leads to it is easy, and there are many who travel it.
Matthew 7:13

They do not believe, because their minds have been kept in the dark by the evil god of this world. He keeps them from seeing the light shining on them, the light that comes from the Good News about the glory of Christ, who is the exact likeness of God.
Satan, who is the god of this world, has blinded the minds of those who don’t believe. They are unable to see the glorious light of the Good News. They don’t understand this message about the glory of Christ, who is the exact likeness of God.
2 Corinthians 4:4

So if the Good News that we tell others is covered with a veil, it is hidden from those who are dying.

The LORD, the God of their ancestors, sent word to them through his messengers again and again, because he had pity on his people and on his dwelling place. But they mocked the messengers of God, despising His words and scoffing at His prophets, until the wrath of the LORD against His people was stirred up beyond remedy

While you have been sinning, I have been trying to talk to you, but you refuse to listen. You have done the same things the people did at Shiloh,' " declares the LORD. " 'Although I spoke to you again and again, you did not listen. When I called you, you did not answer.

The Parable of the Weeds
(Ezekiel 17:1–10)

24Jesus put before them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. 25But while everyone was asleep, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and slipped away. 26When the wheat sprouted and bore grain, then the weeds also appeared.

27The owner’s servants came to him and said, ‘Sir, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?’

28‘An enemy did this,’ he replied.

So the servants asked him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’

29‘No,’ he said, ‘if you pull the weeds now, you might uproot the wheat with them. 30Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat into my barn.’ ”

The Parable of the Barren Fig Tree
(Isaiah 5:1–7)

6Then Jesus told this parable: “A man had a fig tree that was planted in his vineyard. He went to look for fruit on it, but did not find any. 7So he said to the keeper of the vineyard, ‘Look, for the past three years I have come to search for fruit on this fig tree and haven’t found any. Therefore cut it down!a Why should it use up the soil?’

8‘Sir,’ the man replied, ‘leave it alone again this year, until I dig around it and fertilize it. 9If it bears fruit next year, fine. But if not, you can cut it down.’ ”

2 Peter 3
The Coming Judgment
(Genesis 7:1–24; Jude 1:17–23)

1Beloved, this is now my second letter to you. Both of them are reminders to stir you to wholesome thinking 2by recalling what was foretold by the holy prophets and commanded by our Lord and Savior through your apostles.

3Most importantly, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires.a 4“Where is the promise of His coming?” they will ask. “Ever since our fathers fell asleep, everything continues as it has from the beginning of creation.”

5But they deliberately overlook the fact that long ago by God’s word the heavens existed and the earth was formed out of water and by water, 6through whichb the world of that time perished in the flood. 7And by that same word, the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.

The Day of the Lord
(Zephaniah 1:7–18; Malachi 4:1–6; 1 Thessalonians 5:1–11)

8Beloved, do not let this one thing escape your notice: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.c 9The Lord is not slow in keeping His promise as some understand slowness, but is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish but everyone to come to repentance.

10But the Day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar, the elements will be destroyedd by fire, and the earth and its works will be laid bare.e

11Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to conduct yourselves in holiness and godliness 12as you anticipate and hasten the coming of the day of God, when the heavens will be destroyed by fire and the elements will melt in the heat. 13But in keeping with God’s promise, we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, where righteousness dwells.

Final Exhortations

14Therefore, beloved, as you anticipate these things, make every effort to be found at peace—spotless and blameless in His sight.f

15Consider also that our Lord’s patience brings salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom God gave him. 16He writes this way in all his letters,g speaking in them about such matters. Some parts of his letters are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort,h as they do the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction.

17Therefore, beloved, since you already know these things, be on your guard so that you will not be carried away by the error of the lawless and fall from your secure standing. 18But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity.

Amen.

And I say unto you, Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness; that, when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations. Luke 16:9

How the Little May be Used to Get the Great

A. Maclaren, D. D.

Luke 16:9

And I say to you, Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness; that, when you fail…

I. First, then, I desire to consider briefly that strange, new standard of value which is set up here. On the one side is placed the whole glittering heap of all material good that man can touch or handle, all that wealth can buy of this perishable world; and on the other hand there are the modest and unseen riches of pure thoughts and high desires, of a noble heart, of a life assimilated to Jesus Christ. The two are compared in three points — as to their intrinsic magnitude, as to their quality, as to our ownership of them. Of the great glittering heap our Lord says: "It is nothing, at its greatest it is small"; and of the other our Lord says: "At its smallest it is great." All the wealth of all the Rothschilds is too little to fill the soul of the poorest beggar that stands by their carriage door with hungry eyes. The least degree of truth, of love, of goodness, is bigger in its power to fill the heart than all the externals that human avarice can gather about it. Can we thus enter into the understanding of Christ's scale and standard, and think of all the external as "that which is least," and of all the inward as "that which is much"? The world looks at worldly wealth through a microscope which magnifies the infinitesimally small, and then it looks at "the land that is very far off" through a telescope turned the wrong way, which diminishes all that is great. But if we can get up by the side of Jesus Christ and see things with His eyes and from His station, it will be as when a man climbs a mountain, and the little black line, as it seemed to him when looked at from the plain, has risen up into a giant cliff; and all the big things down below, as they seemed when he was among them, have dwindled. That white speck is a palace; that bit of a green patch there, over which the skylark flies in a minute, is a great lord's estate. Oh, dear brethren, we do not need to wait to get to heaven to learn heaven's tables of weights and measures! One grain of true love to God is greater in its power to enrich than a California of gold. Take, again, the second antithesis, the "unrighteous mammon" and "the true riches." That word, "unrighteous" in its application to material good, is somewhat difficult. If we keep strictly to the antithesis "unrighteous" must be the opposite of "true." The word would then come to mean very nearly the same as "deceitful" — that which betrays. And so we have presented to us the old familiar thought that external good of all sorts looks to be a great deal better than it is. It promises a great many things that it never fulfils, tempting us as a fish is tempted to the hook by a bait which hides the hook. But the inward riches of faith, true holiness, lofty aspirations, Christ-directed purposes, all these are true. They promise no more than they perform. They bring more than they said they would. No man ever said, "I have tasted Thy love, and lo! it does not satisfy me! I have realized Thy help, and lo! it has not been enough!" And then the last contrast is between "another's" and "your own." Another's? Well, that may mean God's; and therefore you are stewards, as the whole parable that precedes the text has been teaching. But I am not sure that that is the only, nor indeed the principal reference of the word here. And I think when our Lord speaks of all outward possessions as being, even whilst mine, another's, He means to point there, not only to the fact of stewardship, but also to the fact of the limitations and defects of all outward possessions of outward good. That is to say, there is no real contact between the outward things that a man has and himself. The only things that you really have, paradox as it sounds, are the things that you are. All the rest you hold by a very slight tie, like the pearls that are sewn upon some half-barbarous Eastern magnate's jacket, which he shakes off as he walks. So men say, "This is mine!" and it only means "It is not yours." There is no real possession, even while there is an apparent one, and just because there is no real contact, because there is always a gap between the man and his goods, because he has not, as it were, gathered them into himself, therefore the possession is transient as well as incomplete. It slips away from the hand even whilst you hold it. And just as we may say, "There is no present, but everything is past or future, and what we call the present is only the meeting point of these two times," so we may say, there is no possession, because everything is either coming into my hands or going out of them, and my apparent ownership is only for a moment. I simply transmit.'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands.And so it passes. And then consider the common accidents of life which rob men of their goods, and the waste by the very act of use, which gnaws them away as the sea does the cliffs; and, last of all, death's separation. What can be taken out of a man's hands by death has no right to be called his.

II. Notice for a moment the other broad principle that is laid down in these three verses, as to THE HIGHEST USE OF THE LOWER GOOD. Whether you are a Christian man or whether you are not, this is true about you, that the way in which you deal with your outward goods, your wealth, your capacity of all sorts, may become a barrier to your possessing the higher, or it may become a mighty help. There are plenty of people, and some of them listening to me now, who are kept from being Christians because they love the world so much. The world thinks that the highest use of the highest things is to gain possession of the lowest thereby, and that truth and genius and poetry are given to select spirits and are wasted unless "they make money out of them. Christ's notion of the relationship is exactly the opposite, that all the out. ward is then lifted to its noblest purpose when it is made rigidly subordinate to the highest; and that the best thing that any man can do with his money is so to spend it as to "purchase for himself a good degree," "laying up for himself in store a good foundation that he may lay hold on eternal life."

III. And now let me say one last word as to THE FAITHFULNESS WHICH THUS UTILIZES THE LOWEST AS A MEANS OF POSSESSING MORE FULLY THE HIGHEST. You will be "faithful" if, through all your administrations of your possessions, there runs, first, the principle of stewardship; you will be "faithful" if, through all your administration of your earthly possessions, there runs, second, the principle of sacrifice; you will be "faithful" if, through all your administration of your earthly possessions, there runs, third, the principle of brotherhood.

(A. Maclaren, D. D.)